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Welcome to my blog, if you are looking for reviews of the latest releases then I would suggest taking a look at some of the other excellent blogs mentioned to the right of this blog, for I review an eclectic mix of films from any era and any country and have sadly little time for the latest film news.Enjoy my blog and don't hesitate to comment, I will answer without delay!

Thursday, 24 February 2011

I have reached the number of 50 followers for my blog,
this is far more than I would have ever expected when I first started this thing so Thank you all!
I greatly enjoy reading your blogs as well and I'm having no regrets about starting this blog, I would probably have gone insane if I hadn't of expressed my obsession for film somehow anyway...

But I have also learnt much from the various film blogs I've discovered (with the irreplaceable help of the LAMB) and look forward to learning much more.

Wednesday, 23 February 2011

Like many film buffs I do not see many Short Films, it is not that I avoid them purposefully but that I just wouldn't know where to start if I wanted to explore to Short film world.
Yet they are an important part of Cinema, one should not think less of a director for directing a Short rather than a feature length film.So sometimes I regret not seeing more of them.
For sometimes a Short film can put more excellent shots and different emotions into a few minutes than are included in a whole feature length film.
So as I was saying, I don't watch many Short films, but I somehow came about watching this Short, named Shooter and directed by Ronnie Goodwin. I was very impressed.

Tuesday, 22 February 2011

The year was 1971, the Hollywood New Wave was in full swing, young directors were able to get decent sized budgets for their films as well as considerably more creative control than before. Never mind the so called Hollywood Golden Age, this is when Hollywood really became interesting with directors like F.F Coppola, Martin Scoresese, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen and Sam Peckinpah making some of the most acclaimed films in history, but sadly it didn't last, Blockbusters became the new "big thing" in the late 70's and a new age arrived, an age of successful Franchises like Indiana Jones and Star Wars.

1971 was a particularly great year for film, possibly one of the best for English language Cinema, with such classics as The French Connection, Dirty Harry, A Clockwork Orange, Bananas, A Fistful Of Dynamite, Get Carter, Straw Dogs, Waterloo and Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory.
It was also the year 3 influential and important US directors made their debut's Eastwood with "Play Misty For Me", Spielberg with "Duel" and Lucas with "THX 1138".

But it was also marked by the release of Dennis Hopper's follow up to the wildly successful Easy Rider (1969), The Last Movie, which resulted in Hopper being persistently ignored for many years until achieving a memorable come-back in the 80's with his performance in David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" and his film "Colors".
Hopper wasn't exactly black listed, but he did get thrown out of MGM and received much bad press and criticism from critics and audience alike over The Last Movie, which is surprising as it won The Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival, but then again Europe has always been more welcoming of avant-garde type films than the US.
"One just has to look at three of the best US films, all three failed to win Best Picture at the Oscars, which they deserved, but went on to win the Palme D'Or at Cannes...Taxi Driver (1976), Apocalypse Now (1979) and Pulp Fiction (1994)."

Even now The Last Movie is considered a terrible film by many, and a messy film by many more. It holds a pretty low score on IMDb which is quite rare, and has even been included in many "Worst Films" lists.
It has been criticised for it's vague and wandering narrative, it's somewhat explicit imagery, some have called it "laughable", others "a waste of time" and "misogynistic".

In a way this is an experimental film, one that pushes the viewers perception of what a film is supposed to be, it offers whole new idea's and techniques and makes several interesting points while still being aloof and almost unintelligible. This avant-garde experimental style that pervades the film wasn't originally present, of course the film was hardly mainstream as it is made by the great rebel Dennis Hopper but it was certainly more accessible before he showed it to his friend and fellow director Alejandro Jorodowsky, who urged him to re-edit the film and make it less comprehensible and more experimental, which is exactly what Hopper did.

Sunday, 20 February 2011

Well, I didn't see as many as I would have wanted this week, but everything doesn't always go as one plans in life I suppose...
I saw a fair amount, mostly great films but a couple of really terrible ones. I don't mind watching the occasional terrible film though, it helps one develop ones critical skills.

About Me

I'm a 17 year old European, that has only been awakened to film as an art form instead of just mindless entertainment for about 2 years, this blog will chart the gradual growth of my film knowledge until I eventually become a Director myself.